Saturday, August 27, 2011

Hello Newsies! What's new?


Over the summer I stopped watching the news.

Perhaps I should take a moment here and admit that the "news" that I watched was Good Morning America or the Today show. Generally not considered hard-hitting journalism and laced with a considerable amount of fluff, but I was able to keep up on the major topics.

When I told my mom that I quit watching the news, she seemed fairly shocked.

I shrugged and said, "Yeah, but when the Fall semester starts, I'll go back to my old routine, and then I will watch the news at the gym in the morning."

This week the Fall semester started. And in fact, I did go to the gym early in the morning. And I did watch Good Morning America. I was even there to watch it at precisely 7 am, which is when it starts here (Central Time). So I saw all the updates of the major stories.

And would you like to know what I discovered?

(Of course you would!)

In the past three months that I have gone without watching the news, absolutely nothing has changed.

At the end of May and beginning of June, the top news stories were: deadly weather, Libya, and the impending debt ceiling.

This week the top news stories were: weather, Libya, and the fallout/effects of the debt ceiling.

Ok, I should probably admit that the deadly weather did change. In May/June it was tornadoes, this week it was an earthquake on the East coast and Hurricane Irene.

[Total side story: I called my mom the day after the earthquake and in the middle of the conversation said, "Oh wait! How was your earthquake yesterday?" She responded, "Great!" in her perkiest voice (the sincere perky, not fake perky).]

And my concluding thought on the news: If it doesn't change in three months, why bother?

Besides, I find out everything on facebook anyway.